The poems published by the poet before his death include My Memory, Wang Shucao, Wang Shucao's Poems and Disaster Years. According to the change of poetic style, his poems can be divided into three distinct stages: early stage (1924- 1929) and middle stage (1929-65438).
My Memory, the first issue, contains 26 early poems by Dai Wangshu, which are divided into three series: Old Tip, Rain Lane and My Memory. These three series also reflect the subtle changes in the trend of Dai Wangshu's poems in the same period. Lao Shao has the characteristics of classical poetry, especially the late Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, and also shows the influence of British decadence and French negative romanticism. The series of Rain Lane embodies the poet's pursuit of the musical beauty of poetry, the fluidity of poetic images and the obscurity of the theme; Wei Erlun, an early French symbolist poet, thought that his image was a close combination of vagueness and precision, which had a great influence on him [1]. However, the poems in my memory pursued colloquialism and simplicity, and were influenced by the late French symbolists, such as Gormond and Meyer. Shi Zhecun once said: "Dai Wangshu's translation of foreign poems and the creation of new poems started almost at the same time", "He translated the poems of Daosheng and Wei Erlun just when he wrote Rain Lane; When translating Gomon and Meyer, it was time for him to give up rhythm and turn to free verse. Later, in the 1940s, when translating Flowers of Evil, his poems began to rhyme. " [2]. It can be seen that every turn of Dai Wangshu's poetic style is related to the influence of western poetry.
Dai Wangshu began to write poems in the mid-1920s. At that time, on the one hand, new poems characterized by frankness and boldness were popular in the poetry circle, on the other hand, Wen Yiduo, Xu Zhimo and others were conducting metrical experiments on new poems. Dai Wangshu's poetry is a rebellion against the former orientation, but it also draws on the achievements of the Crescent School and others. The old sharp collection has not got rid of the traces of old poems. Except that the external form of poetry is new poetry, with gorgeous rhetoric, rich colors and classical images, the theme and artistic conception are close to ancient poetry, and the emotion of poetry is clear and sad. From its words, we can get a glimpse. For example, most of its scenery words are sunset glow, streams, ancient trees, distant mountains, fallen leaves, cold wind, residual flowers, butterflies, fragrant tears and so on. And its abstract words are mostly sadness, loneliness, sadness, loneliness and desolation, which is more like the translation of ancient poems today. However, there are still many attempts in form, including the imitation of old poems, the colloquial thinking of a quiet night and the drafting of sonnets.
Dai Wangshu quickly turned to the stage of Rain Lane, focusing on the pursuit of the rhyme of new poetry. Although this series of poems still has a strong sense of ancient poetry, they have been used naturally. Although Dai Wangshu is not a crescent poet, his contribution to the musicalization of new poetry in Rain Lane has made Ye Shengtao praise him for opening a new era for the syllables of new poetry. Rain Lane is mainly composed of three lines, with the middle two lines ending in two syllables and alternating rhymes. The last line of each poem echoes in the same rhyme. Rhyme is used intermittently in the sentence, and the first two sections are repeated, especially the method of crossing the line of continuous syllables, so that the pause of syllables is intermittent, and the continuity of poetry is consistent with the cycle of syllables. At the same time, several sets of parallelism sentences are adopted, which further increases the musical sense of poetry. Zhu Xiang once praised Rain Lane, which adopted the length of western poems and was not inferior to the long and short sentences in the Tang Dynasty in terms of syllables. Another poem, "Don't look at each other so brightly", is very rhythmic. There are five paragraphs in the whole poem, and the first three sentences of the first, third and fifth paragraphs repeat the same content, only the last sentence changes slightly, forming the effect of repeated chanting.
-Dai Wangshu didn't stay too long in the pursuit of rhyme. Soon after, he wrote My Memory, which changed from focusing on rhythm to pursuing the rhythm and melody of poetry's inner feelings. China's original vernacular poetry pursues natural syllables, approaches prose and loses its charm. Later, the new metrical poetry school overcorrected and contributed to the musicalization of poetry. Dai Wangshu found a new way after experiencing the decimal system of new poetry. He absorbed the advantages of the two ways, so that the new poems without traditional melody also had inherent musical beauty under the appearance of prose culture. The sentence patterns in my memory are uneven in length and have no fixed rhyme. This poem soothes nature and sets a precedent for his later poems such as "I use my broken palm". "Alone" sets off two opposing images, one is uncertain things such as laughter, dreams, music and white clouds, and the other is solid things such as wood and pipe, which form the tension of poetry and write a vivid sentence like "People smoke in the dust of dreams". Free sentences such as "I don't love or hate it, but I know the weight it brings" in autumn are plain and kind.
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Dai Wangshu's mid-term poems include the poems of Wang Shucao and Wang Shu, and the poems of this period were influenced by French symbolism poetry. Symbolic poetry opposes objective description and emphasizes self-expression, which is not an emotion that can be clearly explained by reason, but a vague, complex, subtle and profound feeling and situation. Symbolism advocates that this situation should be captured through the suggestive description of the corresponding external scenes such as nature, so symbols and hints are often used in writing poems. These characteristics of symbolism are consistent with the characteristics of China's traditional poems that focus on implication and contrast. Therefore, new poets used it to correct the shortcomings of plain poetry and formed a modern school of poetry. Dai Wangshu became a representative poet of modernism with Wang Shucao.
"Wang Shucao" has obvious symbolic poetic characteristics, abandons the pursuit of musicality in the "Rain Lane" period, integrates oral language into poetry, pays attention to the subtle correspondence between feelings and emotions, and also pays attention to expressing inner uncertain emotions through hints, synaesthesia and other means. As the poet advocated in "On Zero Zagreb's Poems" written in the early 1930s, "new poems should have new emotions and new forms to express" [3], and poets should choose their own poetic forms like choosing their own shoes. Poetry in this period made great artistic achievements.
Poems such as Nightcrawler, Dreamer and Birds in Paradise all have strong symbolic meanings, and each poem has a complete symbol. Nightcrawler is a lonely Nightcrawler, walking in the dark, as quiet as night. Around this subject image, there are deserted streets and black fog. The whole article does not directly express the anguish of the poet and his contemporaries, but uses these natural images to convey the poet's feelings, which is more subtle and artistic than the direct expression of tears and lament in previous poems.
In the experimental evolution of poetic style, Dai Wangshu is actually contradictory in his heart. In different periods, he will still return to the rhythm of poetry. The poet didn't write poetry completely according to his own poetic theory, but the musicality at this time no longer confined poetry to rhythm, but paid attention to the rhythm of new free poetry. The dreamer is better than the author in accurately grasping and expressing emotions. The poetic feeling of music is still very strong, but it does not deliberately pursue melody like Rain Lane. The use of natural and fluent sentences in phonology is convenient for the author to express his passion, depression and dreams hidden in his heart for a long time. The Dreamcatcher may not be standard according to the principle of symbolic poetry, but it is still a good poem, because the passion of poetry makes up for its lack of meaning. When people read this sentence, they will be deeply moved by it and forget its skills. When Yu Guangzhong criticized Dai Wangshu's poetic theory that "the most important thing in poetry is the subtle differences in poetry, not the subtle differences in words", he once said: "Poetry is originally conveyed by words, and it doesn't matter who is more important. What really matters is whether poetry can work closely together, just like the popular "sound as it is intended" ... As far as poetry is concerned, the most important thing is to have something to say, not to spend it in front of the mirror. [4] Although it is a criticism, I think it can be used to illustrate the success of this poem. Although Dai Wangshu's creation belongs to modernism, it is characterized by deep thinking, avoiding emotional catharsis and pursuing wisdom. The focus of his poems is still on the expression of emotions and emotions, and the way is between hiding and expressing, just as he himself said.
Birds in Heaven and Dreamcatcher pursue the same ideal, but it is full of more doubts and despair, and is no longer as full of hope as Dreamcatcher. The poet asked, "Yu Hua/Since Adam and Eve were exiled, how desolate the garden was that day". Birds in Paradise is the poet's own situation, which shows the poet's hesitation and frustration. Birds in Paradise realizes the poet's idea in the rhythm of poetry, that is, it emphasizes the inner ups and downs of poetry emotion, and "flies, flies, spring, summer, autumn and winter,/day and night, non-stop" expresses the scene of birds flying in heaven with a short pause.
These two poems can be regarded as the representative works of the poet in the middle period, which are the symbols of the poet's life dilemma and spiritual dilemma condensed through aesthetic abstraction and visualized through appropriate images and poetry.
In this issue, Dai Wangshu also tried other poetic styles, such as the musical beauty of Impression, Qiu Meng, Gentle Bells, the formal beauty of neat and symmetrical palindromes in Worry, the drama sketch of Village Girl, the parody of ancient poems by My Concubine, the perfect combination of modern vernacular and classical rhyme in Travel Notes, and the influence of Autumn Flying on Japan. It shows that Dai Wangshu's mid-term poems are deeply influenced by symbolism, but he has not given up exploring various styles.
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Dai Wangshu's later poems mainly focused on the year of great disaster. When the flame of the Anti-Japanese War spread all over China, poets who were used to singing their hearts were not satisfied with their own joys and sorrows. In the shock and great changes of the great era, the poet changed his concept and style of poetry. Among these 25 poems, 16 was written during the Anti-Japanese War, and the change of its poetic style is mainly reflected in these poems. The poet's transformation is not easy, and his heart is not without contradictions. He once criticized the national defense poem: "There may be national defense consciousness in the poem, and the poem with national defense consciousness may be a good poem, the only condition is that it is a poem itself. However, on the other hand, the so-called' national defense poem' is just a line, a shallow and vulgar speech that barely rhymes. " [5] In his letter to Ai Qing, he said that since the Anti-Japanese War, he was seldom satisfied with his poems. At the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, he was still trying to combine poetic exploration with the spirit of the times perfectly.
However, this repression did not last long. Since Dai Wangshu 1939 wrote "A Blessing on the Yuan Day", his later poetic style has gradually formed, with new development in theme and subject matter, and the poetic art has also taken a completely different turn from before. "Blessing! Our land &; Blood-stained land, charred land &; The result is stronger land will grow. " Such a poem will never find any sad and wandering "Rain Lane Poet" shadow. After the fall of Hong Kong, the poet was arrested by Japanese spies and wrote this wall in prison. After he got out of prison, he wrote My Broken Palm, Waiting, Waiting II, Slogan and so on. His poems have bright colors and strength, as well as concern for the fate of the nation-state. His poems have a broader vision and are full of vitality than previous works. Most of these poems do not use political slogans, but they accurately grasp the pulse of the times. What is particularly valuable is that they have overcome the disadvantages of "national defense poems". The poem conveys the love and patriotism of the nation and the pain of being in the occupied area, but it is not empty and angry, full of passion and easy to say. As Sun pointed out: "The characteristic of Wang Shu's poetry is the improvement of ideological content, which not only does not hinder his artistic skills, but also makes his artistic skills better and contributes to the deeper improvement of ideological content." [6]
Dai Wangshu's poems increase the real feeling of life, highlight the use of line drawing techniques, and pay more attention to expressing the inner rhythm generated by passion. If Slogan is too straightforward and full of propaganda, then Waiting Two is gloomy and powerful, and the poem expresses the poet's painful mood with concise narrative tone and short sentences. "The Wall of Prison" and "I Break My Palm" are the representative works of this issue, especially the latter, which is very poetic, the rhythm fluctuates with poetry, and there is also a lot of room for imagination, and the long and short sentences are patchy, reaching the perfect realm of both free poetry and musical beauty.
There is another tendency in Dai Wangshu's later poems. He still wrote some poems expressing his inner anguish, such as White Butterfly, Loneliness, To Fireflies, Living in the Old Residence and so on. No matter how his poetic style evolves, these sad feelings never seem to leave him. His Tomb of Xiao Hong won unanimous praise from Yu Guangzhong, Cang Di and other poets. This is a prosperous and pure poem. Yu Guangzhong commented that this is just like the poetic scene in the Tang Dynasty, "The first reading is like a text, and the second reading begins to see the truth" #, and Dai Wangshu's experiments on various styles have reached a comprehensive level in this little poem.